
god's purposes in the war. 



A SERMON 



DELIVERED IN THE 



PIIESBYTEIUAN CHURCH AT CALDWELL, N. J,, 



ON THE DAY OF 



NATIONAL THANKSGIVING, 



J^TJG-XJST 6, 1863 



BY REV. I. N. SPRAGUE, 

(pastor.) 



NEWARK, N. J.: 

PRINTED AT THE DAILY ADVERTISER OFFICE. 
1863. 



GOD S PURPOSES IN THE WAR. 



A SERMON 



DELIVERED IN THE 



PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AT CALDWELL, N. J., 



ON THE DAT OP 



NATIONAL THANKSGIVING, 



AUGUST 6, 1863 



BY REV. I. N. SPRAGUE, 

(PASTOR.) 



NEWARK, N. J.: 

PniNTED AT THE DAILY ADVERTISER OFFICE 
18G3. 




ET 



"3 



'^iT 



Caldwell, Aug., 10, 18G3. 

Rev. I. N. Sprague, 

Denr Sir : 

Believing that the publication of 

the sermon delivered by you on the day of National Thanksgiving 

will l3e productive of public good, we respectfully ask a copy of the 

same for publication. 



Truly Yours, 



LEWIS C. GROVER, 
ZENAS C. CRANE, 
JAMES ORTON, 
RUFUS F. HARRISON, 
STEPHEN PERSONETT, 
EDWIN R. DILLINGHAM. 






Lewis C. Grovee, Esq., and others, 

Gentlemen : 

The sermon was written 
with no other object than of being useful to my own people. You 
are welcome to make it public if you think it will Ijc of any service 
to the interests of our common country. 

Yours, &c., 

I. N. SPRAGUE. 



SERMOIsr. 



That men may know that Thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the Most 
High over all the earth.— Psalm Ixxxviii : 18. 

On days appointed by our rulers, as occasions of thanks- 
giving and praise, or of fasting and prayer, long-established 
custom has allowed ministers a large liberty of speech. On 
such occasions they have been permitted and even expected 
to choose their themes from a wide range of subjects — to 
lay aside ordinary gospel themes, and launch out into fields 
secular and worldly, moral, social, scientific, national or gov- 
ernmental. It is commonly expected of them that they will 
then take up some popular topic of the day — some aspect of 
national or governmental affairs, and that they will give what- 
ever subject is thus selected, a fair and honest and Christian 
discussion, not in the light of party politics, but in the light 
of Bible truth. 

While custom has given this latitude to the pulpit, every 
right-minded minister will exercise a wise discretion, and have 
due regard to the principles of propriety and usefulness, in 
marking out the line of his duty. The apostle said, "All 
things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient," 
A minister is not hound to do all things that he may have a 
right to do. There are some governmental themes, some 
purely worldly questions, entering into the strife of political 
parties often, which clearly may not lie, at all, in the lino of a 
minister's duty to discuss ; but there are others which involve 
so much of the principles of morality and religion, of duty to 



6 

God and duty to man, that no minister can be silent on them 
and be faithful to his ordination vows. In the consecration 
to his sacred office, every minister is solemnly sworn " to de- 
clare the whole counsel of God," according to his best judg- 
ment, " whether men will hear or forbear." Should a minister 
feel it his duty to preach on any topic of national affairs, 
there is one consideration that should give him a wise discre- 
tion in the exercise of prudence and piety. When a man is 
elected President of these United States, the moment he takes 
his seat in the executive chair, he becomes a national and 
should cease to be a party man, for he becomes then the 
President of both parties, and should have a supreme regard 
to the interest, not of his own party, but of the whole nation. 
So in every Christian congregation, there are persons of dif- 
ferent political sentiments, whose views and feelings are 
entitled to respect, in the public services of the sanctuary ; 
and however strongly a minister may hold his own political 
views, it would be a manifest breach of Christian propriety 
and courtesy for him to take advantage of his public position 
for the purpose of pulling down one party and building up 
another. He is bound to preach the truth and the whole truth, 
without regard to any party, remembering that he is the min- 
ister of both parties and anxious to do good to all. I do not 
say that even such a ministry, exercised on this principle, will 
pass along, in times like these, without being found fault 
with, by what the apostle terms " unreasonable men," — men 
who always demand silence on all topics that are disagreeable 
to them ; but I do say, that such a ministry will be acceptable 
to God and profitable to men, for it is the only ministry which 
is faithful and true, dividing to every man a portion in due 
season, neither radical on the one hand, nor time-serving on 
the other. 

I claim, also, that the views of ministers, respecting the 
moral and social and religious aspect of our national affairs, 



are entitled to respect and a fair consideration on the part of 
the people, for two reasons : 

1. They are good men. Make liberal exceptions in individual 
cases, and it has been conceded on all hands that the world 
has never seen a better class of men than the Protestant min- 
istry of the present age — pious, honest, self-denying, laborious, 
and devoted especially to their great work of advancing 
civilization and saving the souls of men. Highly learned, 
clear headed and honest minded, they possess the qualities, 
and are in the fairest position, to take large, clear and right 
views of all subjects in connection with the great principles of 
religious morality. If I should find myself disagreeing with 
such a body of men on moral subjects, I should seriously be- 
gin to question whether I was not wrong. 

2. These ministers hole over the affairs of the luorld from an 
elevated stand-point. Party men, of both sides, are now look- 
ing at the affairs of the country from their political platforms, 
and of course everything appears to wear a peculiar tinge 
from the positions they occupy. But I verily believe that the 
great body of the Christian ministry are looking forth from a 
higher position than any political platform. They take their 
stand upon the Bible and upon its great revealed principles of 
truth and righteousness. They measure the length and 
breadth of every moral question, by the unerring standard of 
God's holy Word. Is it in accordance with that Word ; then 
it is right ! Is it contrary to that Word ; then it is wrong ! 
This is the verdict of God's true ministers the world over, and 
must be to the end of time. 

Now look at these facts in connection with still another, 
the wonderful harmony that exists among the great lody of minis- 
ters of every denomination, at this moment, as to the moral ques- 
tions involved in the present posture of our national affairs. 
They are not all of one political party. On many things, like 
other men, they have party views and preferences ; but if you 



8 

note the utterances of Presbyteries, Synods, Assemblies, Con- 
ferences, Conventions, and even missionary meetings, you will 
hear, substantially, but one voice, evincing a most wonderful 
agreement on the great moral questions and fundamental prin- 
ciples connected with our present national condition. 

In the present struggle for our national life, we are truly a 
spectacle to the loorld. Political France and political and aris- 
tocratic England, both governed by the principle of a supreme 
worldly selfishness, are looking upon our struggle, with a 
greedy desire that it may eventuate in the final separation of 
North and South, and the breaking up of our free institutions. 
In all of their actions towards us, all questions of right and 
wrong they throw to the winds, and, in obedience to the 
principle of brute force — that might is right, they will gather 
from our misfortunes all the advantages they can. But the 
Christian ministry of those countries have taken their stand 
upon a higher platform, and, in spite of opposing political 
influences at home, they have done one of the noblest deeds 
of Christian brotherhood and sympathy, which the world has 
ever seen. They did not offer us their material aid, for that 
we did not need ; but they have given us what is better, 
their prayers, their sympathy, and their brotherly assurance 
of a God-speed, in our struggle for life and liberty. While 
political France was plotting for our ruin, 750 ministers in 
that empire have drawn up an address, embodying their 
views on our national affairs ; and they have carried over that 
address to their English brethren, calling upon them to unite 
with them in expressing approbation and sympathy for the 
North, in waging war for the suppression of rebellion. And 
while English policy is furnishing ships and munitions of 
war for our enemies, a similar address has been prepared and 
signed by more than 4,000 of her ministers, and that address 
has just been brought to this country by a delegation of two 
able incn, appointed especially for that purpose ; and here in 
our great metropolis, that address has been received by a 



9 

meeting of ministers composed of all denominations ; a suita- 
ble response, embodying the same sentiments, has been pre- 
pared and published, signed by Dr. Vinton, Episcopal, as 
Chairman, and Mr. Duryea, of the Collegiate Dutch Church, 
as Secretary, calling upon all the ministers of the land to send 
in their names, if they wish them appended to that response ; 
the number that have come in and ivill come in^ will only be 
counted by thousands. This embodying of the views and 
sentiments of so many ministers, in Europe and America, on 
the great moral and political questions involved in our na- 
tional controversy, originating where it did, so harmonious, 
scriptural and loyal, is a wonderful thing in this wonderful 
age. 

I have said that ministers are not all of one political creed ; 
far from it. While they may hold different views in reference 
to the minor things involved in our national controversy, in 
the great and important matters they are substantially agreed. 
In passing the noble and patriotic resolutions of our late 
General Assembly there was not one negative vote, and yet 
to my certain knowledge there were men there of opposite 
political creeds. Among ministers, there may be different 
views of the mint^ anise and ciLmmin^ while there is one 
view of the judgment^ faith and mercy. The agreement of 
ministers on our national affairs, is in reference to great funda- 
mental principles ; and recent declarations of different eccle- 
siastical bodies show a very remarkable unanimity on the 
following points: 

1. On the wicked and causeless character of the rebellion. 

2. On the right and duty of subduing it by force of arms, 
to preserve the integrity and union and constitution of the 
government. 

3. The wickedness and impolicy of human bondage, as 
against the principles of the Bible, and as the primary cause 
of all our national troubles. 

2 



10 

4. The apostacy and blindness of Southern ministers and 
Christians; — apostacy from the principles announced to the 
world in our Declaration of Independence, from the great law 
of Christian love and equal rights, and from the declared 
opinions of even the Southern Chlirch thirty years ago ; — 
blindness at the idea that the great system of human wrong, 
which they have made the corner-stone of their new govern- 
ment, can be at all sustained by the principles of Bible truth, 
or agreeable to the civilization of the age. And 

5. As to a supreme divine agency in this whole matter 
of our national troubles, permitting them for the punishment 
of our sins and yet overruling them for our ultimate good as 
a nation. 

Now I claim, that this unanimity of sentiment among Chris- 
tian ministers is entitled to a fair and respectful consideration 
on the part of the people. I hold that such a body of men, so 
large, so learned, so sincerely pious, so unselfish, looking forth 
from the platform of Bible principles, and so raised above the 
fogs of the political atmosphere, are not likely to be mistaken ; 
and I expect to see in the future providences of God a logic of 
events, that will be a clear vindication of the justness of these 
views. 

This harmony of opinion and action among ministers on 
the vital questions, connected with our national life and pros- 
perity, I commend to the people as worthy of their admiration 
and imitation. I suppose there is no question but that the 
great body of the people of the North, of both politica> par- 
ties, are truly and essentially loyal, and intending to give their 
hearty support in sustaining the government, the constitution, 
and the free institutions of the country ; and would they con- 
sent to lay aside their petty differences for the time, and act in 
vigorous harmony, while the assassin is at the throat of tbe 
nation, the affiiirs of the country would be placed in a far 
more promising condition. 



11 

That there are some traitors abroad, mingled in and con- 
cealed among the loyal masses, I suppose no one questions, — 
men, whose real sympathies and hearts are at the South, and 
whose bodies ought to be there,— who shout for Jeff. Davis and 
the Southern Confederacy,— who glory over Federal defeats 
and Confederate victories, — who show their leaning, by with- 
holding delicacies from a wounded Union soldier, and impart' 
ing them with much glee to a wounded rebel,— who clamor 
for free speech and then use their privilege only to abuse and 
vihfy and oppose the government,— who would be guides to 
any Confederate raid, and help them rob and pillage and mur- 
der their loyal neighbors. We have too much proof that 
there are such men at the North, concealed under the garb of 
a professed loyalty, and yet seeking every opportunity to work 
into the enemy's hands, A Southern Confederate I can re- 
spect ; sincere and honest, though mistaken, yet identified 
with the South by kindred and residence, I can respect him. 
But a traitor of Northern blood no man can respect. Even 
the Confederates themselves, after they have received all the 
aid he can give, spurn him contemptuously, as the meanest 
specimen of humanity. Such a man's name will be surely 
embalmed, but it will be embalmed, like that of Benedict 
Arnold, in the odor of infamy. 

But of the great masses of the people of the loyal States, I 
suppose it may be said that they are far more agreed on the 
one great question of our national and governmental life, than 
any one may imagine, from the numerous conflicting political 
views that are floating so freely in the community, I have 
frequently seen this matter tested and proved, in individual 
cases, to my perfect satisfaction. Two neighbors meet They 
stand on different political platforms — they are aniijJodes in 
their political position, K their conversation is about the 
7mntj anise and cummin of our national affairs, they will dis- 
agree, and the more they talk the wider perhaps will they be 



12 

apart ; but if they talk about the vital principles of our na- 
tional life, tbey are in harmony. They hold different opinions 
as to the propriety of arbitrary arrests, the policy of emanci- 
pation, the expediency of conscription and other points, on 
which loyal men may not agree ; but touch them on the sub- 
ject of sustaining law and order and government, and putting 
down rebellion and riots by the strong arm of power, of 
taking strong measures to prevent the disintegration of a Con- 
stitutional Union by the heresy of secession, and they are not 
so far apart as you imagine. Let loyal men of different politi- 
cal creeds bring out the points on which they agree, and these 
points are far more important than those on which they differ. 

Thus I have given you a long introduction to my thanks- 
giving address ; but thus much I wished to say, hoping that 
it would be well received by those who hold different views, 
and believing that if thus received, it would do good. In 
such times as these, we are apt to be in a state of feverish ex 
citement, too easily yielding ourselves to impulsive feelings 
and movements, when we specially need the soothing influence 
of a calm judgment and an unprejudiced mind. It is said to 
be the little foxes that spoil the vines, by working among the 
tender grapes ; guard against these, and then we shall have 
the more strength and union to fight against the more formid- 
able enemy. When a man's house is on fire, it is folly for the 
neighbors to stand around idly and angrily discuss the ques- 
tion, who set it on fire ? Let them go first vigorously to work to 
put out the fire, and then find out and punish the guilty party. 
I like the remark of one among us, in politics opposed to the 
present administration ; said he, "I am going to do all I can 
to help the government out of this trouble, and then I am 
going to call them to an account." 

I have said that the great body of ministers, and I may in- 
clude with them the great body of professed christians, arc 
united in the belief, that God is in this war — that He permitted it 



13 

luhen He might have prevented it — that He has His special reasoiis 
for this Divine permission^ and that it is His purpose to override it 
for His oivn glory and the interests of religion and humanity. 

Two things, I think, must be granted by lis all — 1. That 
God is a luise and holy sovereign ; He never does any thing fool- 
ish or wrong — that however mysterious His workings are to 
men, they always turn out well, when the end is reached — 
that while He gives to none of us an account of any of His 
matters, we all have reason to confide in Him, as too wise to 
make any mistake, and too good to do any thing wrong ; and 
2. In the past history of the ivorld, He has made use of ivarsas a 
very common means of accompilishing His purposes. In very 
many cases we see the Divine hand, and trace the evident con- 
nexion between these terrible conflicts of depraved human 
passions, and the great and good results that were made to fol- 
low. Witness the war of the Romans against the Jews, re- 
sulting in the breaking up of the Jewish establishment, and 
the publishing of the true religion to the Gentile world ; — our 
own war in the Revolution, creating a new nation and a new 
government, in advance of all others in the great principles of 
human liberty and christian civilization. Wars have been 
sometimes necessary to break the fetters of long established 
systems of tyranny, to give freedom and scope to the mind in 
working out new and improved forms of government and 
civilization. We have no reason to suppose that the war now 
raging in our country, the most terrible scourge and evil that 
we have ever seen, will prove an exception to the general rule 
of God's sovereignty, as manifested in His Word and Provi- 
dence. God evidently has His purposes in this war, and His 
purposes may be very different from ours. The purpose of 
Joseph's brethren, in selling him into Egypt, was very different 
from God's purpose in permitting him to be sold. Tlic pur- 
pose of the Jews in crucifying Christ, was very different from 
God's purpose in permitting him to be crucified. The purjiose 



14 

of a proud Eastern king, in making war against the Jews, wfis 
to extend his empire and add to his -worklly glory ; but God's 
purpose, in permitting that war, was to use that king as a rod 
of chastisement against His people, and humble them for their 
sins. Our purpose, in carrying on this present war, is to pre- 
serve the government, sustain the constitution and restore the 
Union, as it was established by our fathers. God's purpose 
may be very different. He may care very little for our pur- 
pose, but He will never lose sight of His own. We may be 
doomed to a sad disappointment in relation to our purposes, 
but God's purposes will most surely be accomplished. The 
Union, the Constitution and the Goverment, which we esteem 
so highly, and for which we are willing to make such great 
sacrifices, God may not think so much of; indeed, He may see 
fit to set them all aside, and allow us to be broken up, that He 
may break up established forms of evil and bring out some- 
thing new and better. In moments of unbelief, when I look 
on the human side, I am filled with fear and dismay and ap- 
prehension ; but when I have faith in God, in His character 
and wisdom and overruling providence, then I am strengthen- 
ed, because I can see His purpose to make all things work 
together for good. Whether my purpose is accomplished or 
not, I am sure that God's will be, and His purpose is wiser and 
better than mine. The Lord reigns : He makes even the wrath 
of man to praise Him, and the remainder He restrains : let us 
rejoice in and submit to His wise and holy sovereignty. 

In human events there is sometimes a foreshadowing of the 
Divine purposes. The Psalmist says — Tlie meek loill He guide 
i7i judgment ; the meek ivill He teach his ivay. If we are meek 
and humble and submissive and pious, watching God's hand 
in the movements of His providence, I think we can learn 
something of what are the Divine intentions and purposes. If 
we arc anxious to do Ilis will, we shall be likely to knoio His 
will. Of course no one can tell what shall be on the morrow 



15 

— no one can calculate that his views respecting the Divine 
purposes are certainly the right views. But providences, as 
they come along, do unfold the will and purposes of God ; and 
from what we know of the past and see of the present, we can 
sometimes get a foreshadowing of future events. And it 
seems to me, that in our present condition, there are some 
data, some positive facts in providence and some evident prin- 
ciples at work, by which we can, at least, form some probable 
conjecture of what are the Divine purposes respecting us as a 
nation in the issues of this war. These data, which I think 
we can make the basis of our reasoning in forming our judg- 
ment, consist of the three following things : 

1. The known principles of God's Word, the revealed pre- 
cepts of righteousness and truth, in accordance with which 
God always acts in His dealings with men and nations. Right- 
eousness exalteth a nation, and brings prosperity in the Divine 
blessing; but sin is a reproach to any people^ and incurs the 
Divine displeasure and punishment. 

2. The principles evidently at work in our national affairs — 
the vital principle of a free government with the power resting 
in the people, in opposition to the Divine right of kings and 
the usurpation of privileged classes ; — the principle of a man's 
ownership of himself and possessing a free personal responsi- 
bility, or of being a serf, a mere chattel at the disposal of 
another. 

3. The leadings of God's providence in connexion with our 
national affairs — what things He is forcing upon the public at- 
tention — about what particular points He is concentrating pub- 
lic interest — where is the particular battle-field on which the 
conflicting moral forces are at work — what are the questions 
of right and wrong, of truth and righteousness, which arc 
prominently in debate, which toill come up, notwithstanding 
every effort to put them down. 

These are the data — these are the things for us, as a nation, 



16 

to consider and study. They must be looked at — they will 
not be put aside — they will come up, it is impossible to avoid 
them — they appear in every phase of our national affairs ; if 
you laij them in one form, like the ghosts of Macbeth, they 
will come up in another. It is coming to be an admitted 
point, that these principles embody our national destin}'' — that 
under God's hand they will issue in our ruin or salvation, just 
as we work them. If we adopt these principles of God's 
Word, of righteous government, of just and equal privileges 
in a common manhood, then we insure our national life and 
prosperity, because we secure the Divine approbation and 
blessing. If we disregard these principles and give ourselves 
over to the dominion of self-will and a worldly self-interest, 
then I apprehend we shall be swept away with the besom of 
destruction, just as God for the same reasons swept away the 
mighty cities and kingdoms of ancient times. 

I hold that we are a religious nation. We acknowledge the 
true God, We adopt His word as our highest law. I expect 
we are going to act as a religious nation, and I expect, as we 
do this, that God will open a way for us through our sea of 
difficulties, and bring us into a large place, improved 'by our 
discipline, and destined, probably, to stand in a higher posi- 
tion than ever before. I should not wonder if God means to 
accomplish, by means of this war, some great and good ob- 
jects, by a quick process, which it would have taken scores of 
years to accomplish in the ordinary course of events. In this 
matter the light is only just beginning to break in upon us, 
but as we jjrogress that light will become clearer and stronger. 
Already the enquiry is raised, WaicJijnan, what of the night ^ 
and already the answer is heard. The morning cometh. 

If we are to succeed in this war, judging from the known 
Divine principles already announced, I am inclined to think 
that God 'intends to accomplish the following objects by means 
of the war, and if so, it is fair to presume that lie will not let 



17 

the war cease till there is a providential certainty that they 
will be accomplished : 

1. He means to let this imtion hioio that He reigns. While we 
have been, virtually, a religious nation, we have made no na- 
tional religious profession. He is not acknowledged, as He 
should be, in our constitution ; there is not a clear and dis- 
tinct and humble acknowledgment of Him in many of our na- 
tional acts. Our legislation has often been on the principle of 
a mere worldly policy, and not in accordance with the revealed 
precepts of truth and righteousness. These matters have gone 
on and God has winked at them, as He did at the sins of good 
men in olden times ; but He has now taken them in hand and 
is bringing Himself up to view as the supreme ruler. In His 
dealings with men and nations, he does certain things that 
they may know that he is Jehovah, and the Most High over 
all the earth. He is^now making just such a revelation of Him- 
self to this nation. We thought we were strong and mighty, 
and we were inviting other nations to see and admire our 
greatness, and God is just letting us see how terribly He can 
shake us by'touching us with His little finger. Before He gets 
through with us, I apprehend that he will compel from us such 
an acknowledgment of His being and justice and government, 
as we have never yet made. We are fast coming into that 
position, as His hand is stretched out over us in anger. 

2. He is terrihly rebuking us and punishing us for our sins. 
Hitherto we have prospered and lived in peace in spite of our 
sins, and He has borne with us and held back His chastising 
rod ; but there is a limit even to the Divine forbearance. If 
we, as a nation, had conducted our affairs on the principles of 
truth and righteousness, the evil of this war would never have 
come upon us ; but now for our sins God has come out against 
us in judgment. With one hand He is lifting the rod over us, 
and with the other He is pointing us to our sins and letting us 
see that they are legion. " Look," says He, " at your pride; 
your extravagance, your worldlinessj your worship of mam- 

8 



18 

mon, your irreligion and profanity ; look at your decay of the 
virtue of patriotism, your demagogueism, your bitter, hateful 
party spirit, your wrongs to the Indian, and your greater 
wrongs to the African." " Shall not I visit for these things, saiih 
the LordV It was in view of the oppressive power of the 
strong over the weak, in wringing toil from sable hands with- 
out wages, and degrading the image of God to a beastly chat- 
tel, that Jefferson, that wise and noble statesman, has left the 
following memorable words recorded in his Notes on Virginia, 
" I tremble for my country, when I reflect that God is just, 
and that His justice cannot sleep forever." The very time 
he foresaw has now come. God's justice has waked up. Our 
iniquity has found us out, and He is dealing with us for it. He 
is smiting us with blow upon blow, and His smitings will either 
break us or bend us. In these very smitings I can gather a 
ray of hope for the future. They are a token of His remem- 
brance of us and of His interest in us. He wounds that He 
may heal. If we penitently accept the punishment of our 
iniquities, then He will turn and remember His covenant with 
us. We are just now in such a condition, and G(5d is dealing 
with us in such a manner, that we ought to be like the men of 
Nineveh, when Jonah entered that wicked city and began to 
cry in the name of the Lord, " Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall 
be destroyed." From the king downward every man began 
to search for his sins and put on sackcloth and humbled him- 
self, to avert the threatened judgments of God. So should we 
do as a people. Our sins, social, political and personal, have 
drawn down upon us the Divine curse, and are threatening our 
ruin. I7i the times of our ignorance God ivinked at these sins, hut 
He now commands all men every where to repent. The time has 
come, when our refusal to see our sins and to turn from them 
will prove our destruction. I have sometimes feared that we 
have gone too far already in our impiety as a nation, and in 
our disregard of the righteous principles of that higher latv, of 
which God Himself is the executive power, and in comparison 



19 

witli which all our human laws are as nothing. Certain I am 
that our only hope is in God. If we take such a position, 
that He turns His anger away from us and leaves us His bless- 
ing, then we are saved, and that position I think we shall take, 
and are now taking, under the leadings of His providence. 
Let it be our desire and our prayer that such may be our 
position. 

3. It may he a part of the Divine purpose connected with this 
ivar, to rekindle and revive thai true spirit of patriotism, ivhich 
originated this government^ and ivhich is indispensible to p)reserve 
it. Ours is a government of the people. Every voter is a 
sovereign, in the sense that he assists by his own chosen repre- 
sentatives, in shaping the government and in making and ex- 
ecuting the laws. To preserve such a government, to hinder 
it from becoming the tool of intriguing political demagogues, 
there must be kept alive in the hearts of the great masses of 
the people, a true spirit of patriotism, which our fathers had 
when they framed the government, and which gave up every 
thing, interests, preferences and party feeling for the sake of 
the country. 

In this genuine feeling of true patriotism there has been a 
great decay in the land, and in the place of it there has 
sprung up a spirit of partyism, the tendency of which is 
always, to lose sight of the government in the stronger attach- 
ment to a particular party. Against this great danger Wash- 
ington warned the country in his Farewell Address. He says, 
" That to a popular form of government like ours, this spirit 
is its worst enemy ; that it is in itself a frightful despotism and 
that it leads at length to a more formal and permanent despot- 
ism ; that the disorders and miseries which result, incline the 
minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute 
power of an individual ; that sooner or later, the chief of 
some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his 
competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own 



20 

elevation on the ruins of public liberty; it serves always to 
distract the public councils and enfeeble public administration ; 
it agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false 
alarms ; foments occasionally riot and insurrection." Such 
are the words of warning left by him, who is styled by all 
the " Father of his Country." Into that very error of an 
overheated spirit of party ism have we fallen, and while it 
shows our defection from the true feeling of patriotism, it 
threatens to be the ruin of our free government. A man must 
now follow the file leader of his party ; in the language of 
political parlance, " he digs his grave," if he dares to vote 
even for a good man out of his party ; and some are so blind- 
ed as to imagine that partyism is only one form of patriotism. 

What is patriotism ? It is a whole-hearted love of country, 
prefering its welfare to any thing and all things else. It is 
not party or section, or even preference ; it is country. It is 
a whole-souled loyalty, yielding every thing for the good of 
the whole. It is much more than allegiance. Allegiance is a 
cold, passive obedience to law, a kind of reluctant refraining 
from disobedience; but patriotism is an active, out-spoken 
love of country, always willing to lay precious things on that 
country's altar. You can swear a man into allegiance, but 
you can't swear him into patriotism. Allegiance is compelled ; 
but patriotism is voluntary ; the one you must watch to see if 
it does not break over bounds ; the other is all the time watch- 
ing for the good of the country ; allegiance will do nothing ; 
but patriotism acts on the principle that ceaseless vigilance and 
activity are the price of liberty. Other forms of government 
can be sustained by allegiance, but ours by the spirit of patri- 
otism only. 

In the beginning of this century, patriotism began to de- 
cline and mere allegiance began to take its place, and even 
that allegiance has degenerated, till it has become a bitter party 
spirit, that is always in danger of sacrificing country to faction. 



The events and discussions of these times are opening our 
eyes to these evils, and letting us see that in the decay of 
patriotism, we are, like Sampson shorn of his locks, losing 
both our beauty and our strength. If it is the Lord's inten- 
tion, as we may hope, to bring to the surface once more that 
true and genuine love of country, that is above all parties ; 
that regards the existing administration as the government for 
the time being, without regard to any party — the government, 
whose acts and measures must be sustained, because they are 
of the government, then I can see that we can come out of 
our fiery trial purified as gold. 

4. / have an idea also, that God intends, out of the disorder and 
confusion of the past and present, to work an entire reconstrnction 
in our social system, that in all i^arts of the country ive may he a 
homogeneous people. The terms North and South among us 
have become very significant terms — significant, not more of 
difference in locality, than difference in habits, manners, cus- 
toms, employments, sympathies and character. And when I 
consider the many points of this difference and their influence, 
I do not wonder that the North and South have failed to live 
in harmony. Nor do I believe that they can live in harmony 
in the same government, unless they become more homogene- 
ous in their civil and social state; and all the indications of 
providence are that God intends to work out homogeneousness 
from the existing disturbances. I do not allude here to the 
mere fact of slavery only, but to other things, things that have 
not been so generally known and understood. Let us look at 
some of these things by way of contrast in the two sections of 
our country. 

Nothing strikes a Southerner with more surprise in first 
traveling over the North, than to see our dense population and 
the comparatively equal distribution of the land among that 
population, almost every man living in his own house and 
owning the ground which he cultivates. We are so accus- 



22 

tomed to this feature of our social state, that we do not duly 
consider and estimate its immense advantages over a different 
state. 

At the South there is not this equal distribution of the land 
into homesteads, owned by the great body of the people. 
Thei'e, is a system of large land ownerships, one man owning 
thousands of acres, and of course lording it over all that live 
on those acres ; while, perhaps, nine out of ten own not a 
single rod. This system of large landed proprietors has been 
the curse of every country where it has existed. The Irish 
and the Germans among us can tell us how it has worked in 
their " fatherland," raising the rich into a proud, overbearing 
aristocracy, and binding down the poor to a state of hopeless 
poverty, shutting them out from the privileges of education, 
and oppressing them with a heavy burden of rents and taxes. 
In the Jewish economy God made express provision against this 
evil of large land ownerships. Every fiftieth year was to be a 
year of Jubilee. In that year not only was every bondman 
to go out free, but every piece of land sold was to revert to 
the family of its original owner. No land could be bought 
out of any family with a perpetual title — the purchase could 
only run to the year of redemption ; then it must go back to 
the family which originally held it ; and however low the 
family might have been reduced, this reversion of land brought 
them up again. This Divine arrangement preserved equality ; 
it effectually prevented the existence of large, oppressive land 
ownerships. The comparatively equal distribution of land 
among the great body of the people is one of the richest 
blessings of the North, and the want of it is one of the great- 
est calamities of the South. I should not wonder if God 
intends to break up this Southern system of lordly ownership, 
and divide out among all, the land which he created /or all. 

At the North labor is honorable, and industry a virtue. He 
that said, six days shall thou lahoi\ has so arranged matters as 



23 

to make that labor a necessity for our comfort and happiness. 
Every branch of lawful industry among us is regarded as an 
honorable calling. Where all feel the necessity and the obli- 
gation to work, no one is despised for being a working man. 

At the South it is totally different. Thei-e there is only one 
class that works, and that the class held in bondage, and who 
are owned and sold and driven and beaten like our horses. 
There the white man that works is despised, because by thus 
working he is considered as bringing himself down to the 
level of the negro in the social scale. Hence labor among the 
whites is disreputable, and hence the great body of the whites 
are trying to live without labor. Of course this can be done 
by the 300,000 men who own their labor ; but what is the 
condition of the rest of the population ? Suppose in all the 
Southern States there are 4,000,000 of colored laborers be- 
longing to less than half a million of owners ; then there are 
besides between five and six millions of whites, who are to 
have a living somehow in food and clothing and shelter. 
They own no slaves to work for them; as a general thing 
they own no land ; they consider it disreputable to work, and 
acting on the principle of doing just as little as they can and 
live, is it strange that immense numbers of them have got the 
name of " poor whites," and that the negroes themselves call 
them " poor white trash," and that these names significantly 
point out their exact social position ? They call us " mud 
sills," because we work for a living, and " hirelings," because 
we v/ork in the employ of others, and " white slaves," because 
our labor is performed so many hours to the day and under 
the inspection of master workmen ; but they regard themselves 
as honorable, because they are in no man's employ, and live 
in the dignified leisure of stealing and hunting and keeping 
and training hounds to be put in chase of poor runaways. It 
is one of the worst features of the Southern social system, that 
it has this degrading influence on the poorer classes of the 



24 

whites. It puts them and keeps them in a state of terrible 
bondage and degradation, by causing them to despise that 
course of honest and industrious labor, which God has made 
honorable by enjoining it on all as a duty. Whatever God 
may please to do with the slaves, I should not wonder if He 
intends to liberate these poor whites, and so overturn the state 
of society as to bring them out of their degradation and raise 
them to the dignity of an honest industry. 

I might present the same contrast between the North and 
South on the subject of general education ; here almost uni- 
versal, there very partial and limited. Here knowledge is one 
of the grand fruits of our social equality ; there ignorance is 
the result of their social inequality. Here the school house 
springs up in every neighborhood; there, with their present 
social system, they never can have the successful working of 
our common schools. Our social system invites knowledge ; 
theirs shuts it out. The great mass of the Southern mind is 
enveloped in darkness, and God is making a mighty overturn- 
ing to let in the light, and when He says, " Let there be light," 
there will be light. 

5. / thiyik, also, that the providences of God in this war are 
giving" to us some clear foreshadowing s of what He intends to do 
tvith the vexed question of slavery. It has always been to us a 
subject of tangled difficulties. It has been a Gordian knot 
that no man could untie. The wisest of our statesmen have 
not known what to do with it. Congress has fought over it ; 
almost every branch of the church has fought over it, and 
now the nation has got to fighting over it. We have puzzled 
our brains and exhausted our wits over it in vain. We have 
tried to let it alone, and we have been calling to each other to 
let it alone, and yet it would come up more and more like the 
plague of frogs in Egypt. When a matter is so persistently 
put forward, notwithstanding every effort to keep it down, I 
am accustomed somehow to feel that the hand of the Lord is 



25 

in it. There is every providential indication that the Lord 
has now taken this long-perplexing and difficult subject into 
His own hand, and we wait to see what disposal He will make 
of it. Alex. Stephens, now Vice President of the Southern 
Confederacy, in a speech he once made against secession, de- 
clared " that if we had war, it would break up their institu- 
tion of slavery ;" and it now looks very much as if his words 
were going to prove a true prophecy. As God has evidently 
taken this matter into His own hands, I am willing to leave it 
there for the unfoldings of His will in providence. 

It is very certain that 'passing events are rapidly icorking a 
great change in public opinion loiih regard to the colored race. 
They have been among us, but they are not of us. Their 
natural home is in another section of the globe, and among us 
they are not in their natural position. But this is no reason 
why we should deny them a common brotherhood with us, 
when God has told us that He has made of one blood all the na- 
tions of men ; no reason why we should despise and ill-treat 
them, because God has given them a skin not colored like our 
oion. They are the weak, and God always sympathizes with 
the weak to avenge their wrongs ; they are strangers, and God 
has commanded us specially to be kind to the stranger. The 
Irish made a grand mistake in their recent murderous assault 
upon this dependent, defenceless class — an assault that will 
react to their own great detriment, and call out a special sym- 
pathy for the oppressed. Such a course of persecution will 
most assuredly cause the Irishman to sink and the colored man 
to rise. 

It is smgular how the progress of events in this war is 
rapidly overturning all our pre-conceived ideas about the col- 
ored race and placing them in an entirely new attitude before 
the world — making them the subjects of a deep public interest 
notwithstanding all our efforts to the contrary, and weaving 
their welfare into the very w,eb of our national life. Respcct- 
4 



26 

ing their character and their course, different and opposite 
opinions were entertained in the event of a war between the 
North and South ; and yet how completely have these opinions 
been upset, and we stand confounded and corrected by the 
development of events ! When we saw the storm gathering, 
we all thought that when it burst, the slaves would take ad- 
vantage of it and show themselves a savage and brutal race, 
rising in insurrections and committing such horrid butche- 
ries of women and children as to deluge cities and plantations 
with blood, and how we all shuddered at the bare possibility 
of such atrocities ! The war has now continued over two 
years, and not one single insurrection has occurred, not one 
single family has been butchered by their servants. As a 
class they have showed themselves more civilized and humane 
than we thought. 

Some even took the opposite extreme, "that the slaves 
were so contented with their condition and loved their masters 
so well, that they would never leave them, but fight for them," 
and yet, as a general thing, no sooner has the Federal army 
appeared in sight than they have literally left all and fled, 
showing that they had the same love of liberty as other men ; 
and Southern editors have made sad lamentations over all 
this, as evincing the basest ingratitude on the part of their 
servants toward their kind and indulgent masters. 

It was said also by the ultra abolitionist of the John Brown 
order, " Only begin the war and the whole body of the slaves 
will at once leap to arms and carry it on ;" and yet this senti- 
ment has been belied in the fact that the slaves have quietly 
continued in their usual employments till, in the approach of 
our armies, they could obtain their freedom by fleeing and 
not fighting. 

In each of these particulars, the negro has evinced noble 
traits of genuine humanity, showing his freedom from that 
savage, brutal nature which we have been so ready to ascribe 



2Y 

to him. I question whether he has not acted with much more 
forbearance and generosity than any race of white men would 
have done under the same circumstances. 

When the question was first mooted about incorporating the 
negro into the army, and letting him bear his share in the 
hardships of war, as he had as much at stake as the white 
man, how wide was the prejudice, how deep rooted was the 
objection ! It was said of him, " he won't fight ; he is a pas- 
sive and cowering creature, accustomed to cringe and submit ; 
he has no fighting qualities, no nerve and bravery to meet the 
perils of the battle-field, and white soldiers will not be willing 
to fight by his side." Yet how are all these opinions fast dis- 
solving away like a vapor, before the stern, hard facts of some 
of our recent battles, where this despised race have been as- 
signed the post of greatest danger, and acquitted themselves 
most nobly ! Truly did the Latins say, " Tempora mutantur, 
et mutamur," times change and we change with them. Our 
old dogmas and opinions are giving way. We know but 
little ; we are coming to know more, and we have a good 
teacher in the providences of God. Let us be willing to sit at 
His feet and learn. I should not be surprised if God has much 
to teach us on the subject of this much abused race. I should 
not be surprised if God intends to give this race a prominent 
part to act in our great national drama — to give them such a 
position of prominence and usefulness, as to call forth the na- 
tion's admiration and gratitude. 

In all these providences, it seems to me that I can see the 
shadow of coming events, the earnest of a reconstruction of 
our whole social fabric, and not unlikely on the principle of 
that grand truth, proclaimed to the world by our fathers in 
their Declaration of Independence, " We hold these truths to 
be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are 
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that 
among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 



28 

If this is to be so — if God is to bring this order out of the 
present confusion, which we all must ardently hope, then I 
look for glorious things to be done for Africa. I have said 
that the natural home of the negro is not on this continent. I 
do not say this, because I have any prejudice against him, or 
any objection to his having a permanent home and equal 
rights among us, if he desires to stay with us under all the 
disadvantages of his position. God's government over the 
world has always been a "wheel within a wheel"-- an over- 
turning and overruling for some great end. In His govern- 
ment there is also a principle of compensation — a compensa- 
tion that comes sooner or later as the result of things borne 
and suffered. If this compensation is due any where in this 
world, it seems to me that it is due to Africa and from Chris- 
tian America. I apprehend that the time will come when we 
shall acknowledge this debt and begin to pay it When this 
war is over and society settles down on the principles of this 
new construction, then I think there will commence a move- 
ment, partly missionary and partly civil and commercial, a 
tide of emigation in Africa's sable sons toward the land of 
their fathers, carrying with them all the humanizing institu- 
tions of an enlightened christian civilization. Long has Ethio- 
pia stretched forth her hands unto God, in the character of her 
own heathenism and in the wrongs she has suffered, and for 
aught we know, God may be answering her prayers in the 
present upheaving of our nation. 

As for the future of our own nation, it seems to me that 
God has in store for us greater blessings and a higher position 
than we have ever enjoyed. I say not this in the spirit of 
pride and power, but as my reading of the great principles of 
God's righteous government in connexion with passing provi- 
dences. It may be that, as a nation, we have outlived our 
day of grace — that God has weighed us in the balances and 
found us ivanting. It may be that He will let loose against us 



29 

so many foreign elements as to crush us ; and it may be that 
these very elements are to be the means of our greater union 
and efficiency of action. Under all the circumstances of our 
past successes and our present position, I am hopeful, more 
than hopeful, of complete final success. I cannot but look 
upon the late splendid victories, which *are the occasion of this 
day of thanksgiving, as a Divine pledge in our favor. When 
I look and see what there was to be done, and what has already 
been done — when I consider how utterly unprepared we were 
at the beginning of this civil contest, and how formidable is 
the array at present, with the ample resources of the country 
behind — when I see how the public mind is rapidly drifting 
into views more and more in accordance with Bible principles ; 
and especially when I consider that God is on the throne, 
and remember that Jefferson said that the Almighty had no 
attribute ivhich could take side luith slavery against freedom, I 
have a strong confidence that the Lord is on our side, and that 
when he has sufficiently chastised us and humbled us, and 
brought us to repentance and to the abandonment of our sins, 
then He will give us peace and prosperity ; and that the glory 
of the latter house will be greater than the former. Let us 
then be thankful and hopeful — thankful for the past and hope- 
ful for the future. 




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